husband as a self-reliant person, who was ahead of his time and who supported her to grow professionally and intellectually. Her marriage and subsequent motherhood to three children did not prevent her from completing her university studies, developing a renowned career in journalism and excelling in public life, even at a time when these activities were primarily male-dominated. University studies and journalism Ana Maria Romero was a precocious reader in the great library of her paternal family, which included not only literature but also politics and philosophy, and which helped to later define her inclination towards journalism. Encouraged by the domestic climate and by her uncle, the lawyer and journalist Carlos Romero, she began her career in journalism after her first two children were born. She practiced journalism for three decades, occupying a variety of functions and positions throughout her career. She worked as a reporter, columnist and international press correspondent in Bolivia as well as abroad. Romero graduated as a journalist from the Catholic University of Bolivia in 1976. Later, she took courses in theology at Georgetown University in Washington DC, in the US (1985). At the age of 25, Romero joined the weekly magazine of the El Diario newspaper as chronicler. While working as a journalist at the Fides News Agency and at Radio Fides (until 1979), she met key figures in the history of Bolivia, including the journalist Jesuit Luis Espinal, assassinated in March 1980. In May 1980, Ana Maria Romero founded the weekly magazine Apertura (Opening) along with her mentor José Gramunt de Moragas S.J. and other journalists. Apertura, which started as a space for the defense of democracy, survived for 10 weeks and was then forced to close as a result of the regime of terror and despotism imposed by the dictator Luis García Meza and his then Interior Minister, Luis Arce Gómez. For seven years she led as Chief Editor and Executive Director one of her country's most influential newspapers, the national daily Presencia, owned by the Catholic Church, where earlier she had also acted as its Deputy Director and Head of Press. In 1998 she was conferred the National Journalism Award “for a work conducted with recognized ethics and professional excellence”. Among the agencies and national and international media organizations for which she reported are the magazines TIME (US) and Proceso (México); the news agencies Fides (Bolivia), Inter Press Service (Italy), and the